Rectangular thick plates on winkler foundation: differential quadrature element solution

This paper deals with the static analysis of homogenous isotropic rectangular plates on Winkler foundation on the basis of ®rst-order shear deformation theory. An improved di€erential quadrature (DQ) method, called the di€erential quadrature element method (DQEM), has been developed for this analysis. The plates considered are subjected to a patch load or a concentrated line load, which are not solvable by the global DQ method. The convergence and comparison studies are carried out to establish the reliability of the DQEM results. Then the numerical results for di€erent boundary conditions (i.e. SSSS, CCCC, SʹSʹSʹSʹ and SFSF) are presented showing the parametric e€ects of dimensions of loading area/line, relative thickness ratio and elastic foundation modulus on the de¯ection, bending and twisting moments, and shear forces at selected locations. Most of these data are new and due to the high accuracy of the DQ solution they can be useful for benchmarking future work